Activating many cards, and more specifically financial cards (e.g., credit cards), involve the time-consuming process of cardholders calling a telephone number or visiting a website and entering or otherwise providing card information. Further, while the growing use of chip-based financial cards provides more secure features over the previous technology (e.g., magnetic strip cards) for in-person purchases, account access still typically relies on log-in credentials (e.g., username and password) to confirm a cardholder's identity and/or otherwise complete a transaction. However, if the log-in credentials are compromised, another person could have access to the user's account.
Accordingly, there is a need to improve authentication mechanisms for account access and the competition of transactions, including payment transactions.